


THE BRIDE

by Soloh



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M, Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:22:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26107897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soloh/pseuds/Soloh
Summary: The bride paces anxiously in her windowless chambers, trampling over the ripped and scattered remains of a once delicate veil. She wears no wedding gown. Has fed it to the hearth fire where the gold silk threads and embroidered pearls ignite the stonewalls in a hellish glow. . .
Relationships: Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser
Comments: 36
Kudos: 92





	THE BRIDE

**Author's Note:**

> This is a pinch of acotar and some thermo quotes from DOA too.

The bride paces anxiously in her windowless chambers, trampling over the ripped and scattered remains of a once delicate veil. She wears no wedding gown. Has fed it to the hearth fire where the gold silk threads and embroidered pearls ignite the stonewalls in a burning hellish glow. 

She is betrothed to the notorious nobleman _The Comte St. Germain_. A man of exquisite elegance and roguish charm that many girls can only dream of marrying. But she isn't fooled.

She knows the depths of treachery that dwells in his breast and of the company he keeps that terrorize the dark corners of the city streets of _Gaul_. That all he wants from her is a woman to serve him on hand and knee, a body and soul to own.

And he has tried to. 

Bruising her throat and ribs. But she too has marked him ugly and bloody - gouging him from face to chest, her knee rammed between the crux of his thighs. It brings a faint grin to her face.

But then she hears the ominous sound of a key sliding into the lock of the lone arched door. She stiffens like a hunted doe, bleeding her bottom lip in wait, until she hears the key jamming, breaking in two.

She shrieks with hysterical laughter if only to know that she can breathe again, clutching her aching sides as she does so. The Comte hears her and pounds the door with his fists as his threats fall loud and rabid.

_He wants to bind her arm and foot. Shatter her bones beneath his boots. He wants to belt her flesh raw, slap and bite her pretty face. Wants to -_

Her laughter chokes with bile and her lily-white hands press painfully hard against her tender lips as she wills herself to calm. 

_She'll be faster, smarter, more ruthless than he. She'll throw the fucking bastard in the fire to roast black like the swine he is, herself too if she must. She'll -_

She's barely caught her breath when the fire in the hearth dwindles to sapphire embers, illuminating the chamber like the belly of a twilight sea. The bride's heart throbs with every skittering, piercing beat, as the stones of the hearth quake and unravel, parting for a cloaked figure to step through the impossible opening.

A silky mist whispers over him coming from the dark chasm behind and he lifts the dark green hood from his face revealing, undoubtedly, by the soft curve of his ears, a Fae Lord standing before her.

He looks as if he's flown on a thundercloud to find her, his mane wild and red as elk's blood that ripples down the broad strength of his shoulders like the great tides of the sea. His eyes like the sickle moon are near black with ire as they linger on the iridescent bloom of bruises on her flesh and the thinness of the chemise she wears. But when his gaze meets hers they glimmer with startling tenderness and passion, and a love that burns brighter than the blue flames now writhing at his feet. 

The Lord's voice is low and ragged from unbridled emotion when he speaks yet he manages to smile wryly, "Should'a bride of such beauty be mournin' on her wedding day?" 

_She'd forgotten how deeply she could hate him. Love him. All at once. That - That -_

"You - you - Oh, Jamie!" She throws herself in her only beloved's arms that grip her just as fiercely as he cries, "Claire, _mo chridhe_ ," into her curls, long and lovely as a willow's leaves.

She soaks in his warmth and strength that wraps around her like a shield, breathing in the scent of him - balsam trees and dewy grass, sun-warmed skin she knows tastes of woodsmoke and rain. And the hot muskiness of exhaustion as he trembles to the bone with relief.

"How?" She mouths against his chest heaving strong as a bellow beneath her cheek. 

He nuzzles softly at her crown, hands soothing warmth down her back then shoulders, holding her slightly away.

"Our hearts are forever bound to one another, I've told ye so before." 

_The night they met when he first made her laugh and she dared to kiss him along the glittering Seine._

"I could feel yer despair, thought maybe ye were feeling the same pain as I. Regret for how we parted when ye told me ye loved me nae more." He squeezes her shoulders, knowing how she lied but not why. "But I felt it grow weaker day after day, and kent it must be something more. I ken ye told me to leave ye be but I thought ye were dying, my love. I couldna keep away."

Tears gloss her eyes as she bows her head ashamed, so quietly she says, "I thought you wouldn't. I meant to make you hate me." 

"Never," he affirms, lifting her chin. "I shouldna have let my temper get the better of me, to keep me from yer side. If I hadn't -"

His mouth tightens as he brushes his knuckles down her cheek, gently thumbing her swollen bottom lip.

 _He wants to kiss the blood away, the blight that colors her skin. Wants to love her till there's nothing left of them but a single soul._ . .

But the door is finally forced open and they come face to face with the Comte St. Germain.

The Fae Lord erupts with rage, violent and luminous as a lightning bolt, cracking the stones that encircle them all, as he claws at the air with a twist of his wrist. The Comte stupidly, desperately, reaches for the iron forged rapier strapped to his waist, beseeching the protection of the wickedly divine that he's pledged his soul to, but instead of deliverance, he's sent flying into the far wall. 

His bones shatter with a sickening crunch as blood and strangled screams sputter from his mouth. 

"That's enough," Claire says in a moment of pity to her Lord, and with tremendous effort, she pulls him away, leaving the wretched Comte St. Germain gasping for air alone in the cold dark as the walls that he imprisoned her within collapse.

  
//

  
Claire's brought to a small clearing just as dawn slowly breaks across the big sky, a hazy plume of dark grey and lavender, and the barest hint of golden sunlight. The wind is chilly and tugs at her hair but she savors its biting caress that shudders down her spine, intoxicating her lungs. She walks enjoying the feel of the tall grass tickling her fingertips and the dirt soft beneath her bare feet, but she finds a gaping absence at her side.

She glances over her shoulder where Jamie trails behind, watching her with trepidation as an aching question rasps from his mouth.

"Will ye run off again, _mo nighean donn_? Is this the last I'll see of ye?"

She wraps her arms around herself, curls whisking like dandelion seeds across her lashes and cheeks.

"I didn't run, Jamie."

"Ye did," he reproaches softly, not wanting another fight. "Like a thief in the night with my heart. I gave ye all of me gladly and forever will -"

"But I can't promise you the same." Her bleeding heart lodges thick in her throat and the truth of it all comes pouring out. "Maybe a few decades, a blink in the eye to you before I wither to decay, and you still beautiful as the day we met."

"That's what's been troublin' ye?" His face is serious, but one corner of his mouth curls up irrepressibly. 

"Don't you laugh!" She says furiously.

"I think I will," he smiles widely, and takes a step toward her meaning to kiss the foolishness from her vexing mouth but she takes a step back. He raises an auburn brow daring her to move away from him again and she thrusts her defiant chin high and kicks her left heel back.

What comes next is a flurry of limbs and grunts that leaves Claire breathless with her slender wrists pinned above her head and chrysanthemums crushed in her hair. 

"God's, you are a stubborn wee thing," Jamie admires through his mounting frustration, himself mangled with dirt and grass.

"And you weigh more than a bloody damn bear!" She pants and wriggles beneath him, trying to ignore the spikes of heat rushing through her veins where he's pressed solid and unyielding against her.

"Now get off!" 

"Not until ye hear me out, Claire!" 

Her eyes grow dark as black amber and glare into his.

"What more can be said!? Nothing can be done! Love isn't magic, it won't keep the years from taking me from you."

Jamie's face catches fire in the growing morning light, and moves their hands to press hard on the swell of his breast beating the same raw rhythm as hers.

"So long as my body lives, so will yours, mo ghraidh. Though I think ye'd look just as bonny wi' yer hair touched like starlight, the years no matter how few, grow around yer golden eyes. But ye must know that when my body shall cease, yours will as well. It could be this day, tomorrow, maybe centuries or more. The only consequence when ye make a blood vow with a fae."

"A blood vow?" Claire asks.

His lips curl shyly and his breath warm as a summer night kisses her lips. "It's done when my kind find their mates. A sacred, unbreakable vow that binds two souls in this life and after."

"Like marriage?" She blushes, thrumming like a viola and smiles, the first in so very long, looking lovelier than she ever has to Jamie.

"Aye," he answers simply, low and husky, and finds his courage in three soaring heartbeats.

"My Lady, my Claire, will ye have me as your husband? To serve ye, worship ye, wi' all that I am?"

Tears begin to fall again though she's beaming with joy, tangling her fingers in Jamie's mane as he claims a loving long kiss down the salty trail of each one. 

When he hovers above her lips, they brush his when she answers.

"Well I am wearing white."

"Ye won't be wearing a thing if ye say I do."


End file.
